Another Russian winter begins

November 21, 1990|By Alexei Vinogradsky

This is an excerpt of a letter written Oct. 30 by a 24-year-old Soviet journalist, to an Evening Sun staff writer. Vinogradsky, a reporter for Trud, the Soviet Union's labor newspaper, was a host for The Baltimore Sun Co.'s co-ed softball team, which visited the Soviet Union last summer.

TODAY was the first day of snow. Every fall when I watch the first snow falling down, I feel a strange sadness. Sometimes I like winter, great Russian winter. But sometimes I'm afraid of it. Do you know what is real Russian winter? All nature becomes blind under the veil of white-blue snow. The window glass gets a deep cover of grime. When you're walking down the street, the snow creaks under your legs. Time to time you can see pale sun as it bites the naked branches of cold trees. Gray short days pass quickly. When you awake in a morning you begin right away to feel cold. You want to stay in your warm and soft bed forever. Beyond your window is dark. Despite morning time there is a deep darkness and evening comes soon.

But sometimes you can see awful blue sky. There is such deep color. The sunbeams reflect off the snow. And then the snow seems like a magic diamond field.

It's a wonderful spectacle. The people dressed in winter clothes seem so fat and clumsy. I hate to get a metro train in the winter. It's impossible to imagine! The crowd squeezing you like a rubber ball. Everybody is fat. And you feel such heat it's like somewhere in an African desert. It's awful!

Well, do you like this picture of Russian winter? I'm kidding, of course. I hope you will see this season and get your own opinion. . . . Now I see out my window that the snow has finished and turned into cold nasty rain. I don't like it. When I see such rain I imagine Mother Nature who's crying for the lost summer. I feel a little bit of sadness.